A Good Thing About Facebook, For a Change

     Maybe you're the genealogist or the keeper of family history in your family or maybe you're just like everybody else with a box or albums of old photos. Maybe some of them are washed out, creased, or blighted in some way. Don't despair, there are thousands of talented digital artists out there who know their way around digital editing software, and they will edit your photos for you.

    I was very excited to find these pages because I have little talent in the digital area, and I have been very pleased with the efforts made so far on a few older pictures of my family.  Here's how the groups work:  first, you join and read their rules for posting, then you scan and upload the picture you want edited, perhaps with what you're looking for, and some great volunteer will then post his or her effort in the comments. I've seen some amazing things done. People are able to remove people or objects, put pictures together, change backgrounds, colorize, and sharpen features - just about anything you want. All pictures won't necessarily be picked to work on, and it's possible the work might not be what you expect, but, hey, it's free, right? (Free is the operative word. I have read that some people offer their services or upgraded services, even in these groups, for a fee. That is generally frowned on within the groups.) And you're not hurting the original photo.

Here are some of my family photo examples.

My great grandparents and their 11 children in 1946

My great aunt, great uncle, and uncle around 1939-1940

A couple of great uncles in the early 1940s

My mother and two of her cousins, late 1930s

And these are some of the results.

    So you might be able to search for "photo restoration" on Facebook and find more, but these are the three that I've joined so far:

Random Acts of Photo Restoration https://www.facebook.com/groups/916705811676270

Photo Restoration A Free Service https://www.facebook.com/groups/190352302216996

Restore My Photos for Free https://www.facebook.com/groups/960468551377811

    So, dig out those old photos, scan them and see what miracles can be worked.

REAL MTV: Music Documentaries, part 3

 Continuing my look at some really good music documentaries that I've watched in recent months, here's my last batch of reviews.  

    Few stories are as compelling as Tina Turner's. She truly has lived a dozen lifetimes in one. She's known extreme poverty and enormous wealth. She's found herself at professional lows and highs, lower and higher than only a very few people have experienced. She's endured racism and violence. The HBO documentary Tina tells her story, with her full participation, and without pulling any punches. She goes there; she goes into detail about her relationship with and abuse by Ike Turner, who discovered her as a young and naïve backup singer and then realized that she was a bright star that could take him to heights that he had never dreamed. After she escaped, quite literally, that relationship finally, she still had to endure the press questioning her about the relationship and about subjects that he wanted to keep to herself. The performance bits are great, the interviews are direct and honest. I highly recommend watching Tina. 

(trailer)

    INXS was a huge band in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the Aussie band's frontman, Michael Hutchence, was a superstar frontman. Handsome, sexy, talented, mysterious - he seemed to have it all. Then, in 1997, he was found dead in his hotel room, a suicide. Mystify looks at the career of the band and the man himself, revealing Hutchence's true character. Hutchence was quiet, introspective, sensitive, and very reserved. He didn't like all the attention. One of the interesting things I picked up from the doc was that his vision was extremely poor; he usually didn't wear glasses or contacts when he performed, so he rarely saw his audience, and he liked it that way.  

(trailer)

    Duran Duran is one of those 80s bands that has persisted into the current day, still touring and still releasing new, good music, always evolving.  There's Something You Should Know covers the history of the band and their music, focusing on seven albums and how they were made and how they grew with each release. 

(trailer)

    Rick James was one of those performers whose talent and accomplishments were overshadowed by the negatives - drug use and criminal charges. Did you know, that early on, he was a band mate, and roommate, with Neil Young? He started his musical career in Canada because he had crossed the border to evade the Vietnam-era draft. He dreamed of becoming a rock star and had moderate success. Then he left that band and eventually created the character of Rick James, and his music combined funk and rock. He became a superstar performer and producer. Unfortunately, he also became a major drug addict, leading to some very low spots in his career and personal life. He was an extremely talented man, and he deserves respect for his musical accomplishments.  He really is under-appreciated. Treat yourself to this doc, Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James,  and dig in.  

(trailer)

REAL MTV: Music Documentaries, Part 2

     Here are some more really good music documentaries that I've seen in the past few months.  And yes, they're pretty 1980s heavy, because that was and is my decade of music. However, these documentaries are so well done that you don't have to be a superfan to enjoy them. A lot of these appeared on HBO or Showtime, but you can search for them on your favorite platforms.

   

    Do you know Sparks?  That's OK. I was only vaguely familiar with them because of their collaboration with Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos. I never bought their music, and probably only ever heard one or two songs. However, they were huge in Europe for decades starting in the 1970s, and they are considered a hugely influential band amongst pop and rock musicians. Musician Beck said in the documentary, The Sparks Brothers,  that anytime he's around other musicians talking about music, Sparks is always mentioned. Sparks was/is essentially two brothers, Ron and Russell Mael, who grew up in the Los Angeles area and became enamored with movies and then music. They formed a band called Halfnelson in 1966 and took off from there, becoming leaders in the art rock/pop or glam genres. They were maybe a little too far out there for Americans, never really having huge chart success in the U.S., but they developed a huge and devoted following abroad. The documentary tells their story, and it includes interviews with a lot of 80s music figures. Their story was quite entertaining, and the two brothers are quite entertaining. My only quibble is that the doc is  a tad long, clocking in at 2 hours and 20 minutes. 

(Trailer)

    Speaking of Jane Wiedlin, her group The Go-Go's are the subject of another documentary (The Go-Go's) that aired on Showtime, and they were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2021.  I was a fan of The Go - Go's, but I wasn't fully aware of their backstory.  The band formed in 1978 as a punk band, and they became a sensation because they were an all-female group that played their own instruments and wrote their own songs. A few years later, they decided to go more mainstream, and the rest is music history. Along the way, however, there was a lot of backstage turmoil, with jealousies, drug and alcohol abuse, and personnel changes, and clashes with their own management and record company. 

(Trailer)

    Grace Jones is one of the most iconic 1980s figures there is. She is a superdiva. Her striking and uncommon look got her into the international modeling scene in the early 1970s. She was signed to a recording contract in the mid 70s and became a fixture in the disco and club scene, a fixture at the famous Studio 54 in New York City, and an intimate of Andy Warhol and other chic celebrities. She then transitioned into films, but she was always as famous for her "private" life - which wasn't very private - as for her professional career. Today, at age 73, she is still performing on stage. Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami  captures Jones on stage and off. There is no narration, and there is no mention of timelines. The movie was filmed over several years, following her working, recording, performing, negotiating her own contracts, and following her home to Jamaica, interacting with her extended family. The movie is as mesmerizing as she is.

(Trailer)

        What comes to your mind when you hear the Bee Gees? Kings of disco, of course. Saturday Night Fever. The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart proves that they were so much more.  The Brothers Gibb (hence Bee Gees) were born in the U.K. but raised in Australia. The trio became a recording act in 1958, releasing 12 singes in Australia before returning to the U.K. in 1967. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they had several hits in the U.K. and the U.S.  Then Saturday Night Fever happened, exploding their career. Altogether, they've sold more than 120 million albums, and they are third most successful band on Billboard  charts, after The Beatles and The Supremes. The brothers, especially Barry and Robin, also wrote many hit songs for many different artists over the years. Unfortunately, the brothers also had lots of tragedy along the way. Maurice died during a medical procedure at age 53. Jealousy between Barry and Robin broke up the brothers for a while. Robin himself died in 2012 at age 62. And their youngest brother Andy, who had a big solo career in the early 1980s,  died at age 30 in 1988. Their story is quite a compelling one, and, of course the music is great.

(Trailer)

    Documentaries, part three, coming soon.

    

REAL MTV: Music Television, Part 1

     I recently saw a headline about us currently living in "a golden age for music documentaries," and it makes sense. Baby Boomers and members of Generation X are the generations that grew up surrounded by music and that lived through the birth and growth of rock and roll. They're nostalgic for the musical soundtracks of their lives. Many musical stars of the 1970s and 1980s are in the midst of farewell, reunion or flashback  tours, and they're packing venues. Also, there are more television and online platforms than ever before, and those platforms are desperate for content. Combine an innovative filmmaker and a musical performer or group, you're likely to find an audience for their product somewhere. 

    1970's Woodstock is, of course, the template for many classic documentaries. Other classics include Stop Making Sense, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, Gimme Shelter, and The Last Waltz,

but I've seen and enjoyed several of the more recent documentaries that I highly recommend. 

Trailer

    The most recent release is Summer of Soul, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, front man of the musical group, The Roots. When I say summer of '69, your mind automatically goes to Woodstock, right? Who knew that there was also a Harlem Cultural Festival that brought the biggest names in R & B or Soul music to a park in Harlem over a period of six weeks? Apparently, not many people knew, but it drew massive crowds. One man captured more than forty hours of live performances on videotape, which then sat, untouched for fifty years. A couple of other people discovered it and intended to do something with it, but those efforts came to naught as well. Then, Questlove entered the picture. Questlove realized that the footage not only contained fantastic, never before seen performances, but it also represented a criminally neglected episode in American history. The film is full of great performances by people including Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, and the Staple Singers, just to name a few.  It also includes recent interviews with performers and audience members.

        Twenty Feet From Stardom (2013) is a story about unsung (get it?) heroes of the recording studio, the backup singers.  The film focuses on 6 of the best known backup singers in the industry, who were active from the late 1950s to the present. These women, like Darlene Love and Merry Clayton, provided the background for some of the biggest records in history. In Love's case, her voice was actually used, uncredited, for the lead parts on several songs. She actually recorded songs for some famous girl groups of the 50s and 60s, and those songs were released under the groups' names. She jokes in the documentary, "I recorded the songs and they were climbing up the charts before the group had ever even heard the song." The groups would then lip-sync to the Darlene Love version while on stage. Incredible. And then there are younger backup singers like Lisa Fisher, who had a big pop as a solo artist for a minute in the early 90s, winning a Grammy, and Judith Hill, who is still working on a solo career. The featured women are awesomely talented, and their stories are quite compelling. Sadly, in today's musical digital and computer-generated musical scene, the backup singer is becoming a rarity in the studio.

        The Wrecking Crew (2008) is about another group of invisible artists. The Wrecking Crew was the nickname given to a group of 15-25 super-talented studio musicians who recorded albums in Los Angeles in the 1960s.  They literally played the music heard on dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, of albums in the 1960s and early 1970s, often for bands that couldn't or didn't play their own instruments. The albums would be released under the performer's or band's name, and the Crew never got any credit. The Wrecking Crew musicians worked because they were so good and so fast. They could record an album in a day instead of 3 weeks or more. The Crew recorded for what seems like everybody in the 60s. Name a 60s album, and, if it was recorded in Los Angeles, chances are extremely high that it was a Crew job.  It was amazing to see and hear their stories.

    Look for Part Two of this blog next week, in which I list some great documentaries about specific 1980s artists.

And the latest news in Numismatics......

     Have you heard the news? From 2022  through 2025, the United States Mint will be releasing up to 5 new quarter designs each year, honoring great American women.  This comes on the heels of the very popular state, territory, and national park quarters.  For more info, here's the link to the Mint page https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coin-and-medal-programs/american-women-quarters?doing_wp_cron=1634230641.4021039009094238281250 .

    The obverse ("heads") will continue to be a portrait of George Washington, but a different portrait than we're used to. The reverse ("tails") will feature the chosen woman. The distinguished American women celebrated on the 2022 quarters will be:

• Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
• Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
• Wilma Mankiller – first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
• Nina Otero-Warren – a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools
• Anna May Wong – first Chinese American film star in Hollywood

 

 

    How were these women selected? They were selected through the joint efforts of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus. In 2021, the public was invited to submit recommendations for potential honorees through a web portal established by the National Women’s History Museum. (I totally missed this announcement somehow and knew nothing about it.)

    What a great program! I collected coins as a kid, and I know what a great learning tool that the hobby can be, stimulating the interest and the curiosity of kids and adults alike. But what a great task that lies ahead, the selection of n more than 20 women --- well, actually 15, since the first 5 have been selected.

    I sat down and made a list of women who I think are deserving of the honor, and, after only a couple of minutes' thought,  it's a long one. Here's my list. Whom did I miss ? (Remember, the law requires that the honoree must be dead.)

Anne Hutchinson            Abigail Adams        Martha Washington        Sacajawea

Sojourner Truth            Phillis Wheatley        Lucretia Mott            Dorothea Dix

Harriet Beecher Stowe        Nellie Bly            Georgia O'Keefe            Amelia Earhart

Bessie Coleman                Grace Hopper        Rosa Parks            Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Shirley Chisholm                Barbara McClintock            Edmonia Lewis        Ida Wells

Ida Tarbell                Margaret Bourke White        Elizabeth Cady Stanton        Harriet Tubman

Susan B Anthony        Clara Barton            Dr. Mary Walker        Elizabeth Blackwell

Fannie Lou Hamer        Coretta Scott King        Jane Addams        Helen Keller

Rachel Carson            Betty Friedan        Wilma Rudolph        Lucille Ball        Julia Child

Mamie Till Bradley       Dian Fossey        Dorothea Lange            Dorothy Parker      Cecilia Chiang  

Edna Lewis        Leah Chase          Eleanor Roosevelt        Mary McLeod Bethune    

Frances Perkins        Mary Harris "Mother" Jones        

Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day ?

     In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....

(Discovery of America, by Salvador Dali)

    We've all heard, and maybe memorized, the poem. In 1934, Congress made October 12 a federal holiday, largely because of the lobbying efforts of the Knights of Columbus organization, a Catholic fraternal organization. In 1970, Congress moved the celebration to the second Monday in October.  How did that happen? Columbus never set foot in North or South America proper. He died believing that he had only landed on a few Asian islands, denying that he had "discovered" new continents. And even in the early 20th century, there were lots of theories about people "discovering" the Americas before Columbus: Vikings, Chinese, Africans, Welsh, Jews, Egyptians, Polynesians, etc.  Of course, Native Americans knew the whole debate was ridiculous from the start.

    Columbus Day happened because of the huge surge of Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. In America, they were met with discrimination, racism, and violence. Italian-American leaders were desperate to establish their "American-ness," their rights to the American dream. They latched onto Columbus, who had been mythologized in the early 1800s by mythmakers like Washington Irving, and made him an even bigger American hero. The first Columbus Day was celebrated in 1892, along with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, to mark the 400th anniversary of the first voyage. 

    Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day a state holiday in 1906. Within five years,14 other states had done the same. At the same time, there was a push to commemorate Leif Erickson Day, but that movement lacked the traction that Columbus Day had. Then the 20th century happened. Historians started tearing down the heroic Columbus, and he went from being America's biggest hero to being America's biggest villain, as evidence of the death and destruction that his voyages wrought amongst indigenous people came to light.  

    By the end of the 20th century, a new movement began. In 1989, South Dakota replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Soon, other cities, states, and countries followed suit, replacing celebrations of Columbus with recognition of indigenous peoples.  Just before I wrote this, Mexico City's government announced that its statue of Columbus would be replaced by a statue dedicated to indigenous women.  

    Was Columbus a hero or a villain? We know he was not the first "discoverer" of America. We know that he only really discovered a small portion of the Americas, and we know that he was followed by lots of Europeans eager to follow up on his "discovery." We also know that he enslaved Native Americans from his first voyage, writing in his journal that the natives were “very well built with very handsome bodies and very good faces. They do not carry arms or know them … They should be good servants.” He, and/or his men, enforced subjugation of the Taino people with floggings, rape, amputations, and public executions. Unknowingly, they introduced diseases into the indigenous population.  Ultimately, it is estimated that 50% - 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas died of diseases brought by Europeans and for which the indigenous population had no natural immunity.

Columbus on Trial video

    The truth is that history is never, ever black and white. Christopher Columbus was an important figure in world history, but I think it's difficult to call him a hero.  Was he the greatest villain in history? Maybe not, but it's difficult to justify according him heroic honors.

Substack: A New History Platform?

     Have you heard of Substack ( https://substack.com/ )? Substack, founded in 2017, bills itself as a subscription newsletter service, like TinyLetter or Mailchimp. It's sort of like a blog site, but it allows creators to publish their thoughts to an audience of email subscribers and to collect subscription fees from them. Many of the creators are journalists, essayists, writers, political commentators, and historians. Its advantages are that it's free for creators (Substack takes fees if subscriptions are sold.), creators get their own custom domain and website, creators can grow an audience, and it's relatively user friendly. Readers can follow and interact with their favorite writers and historians.  

 

        Is Substack for you? Is it a good platform for history lovers? I'm not sure yet. I'm just starting to dabble in at this point, so I decided to go to a good source. Dr. Annette Laing is a longtime friend of the Histocrats (Read her 7 Questions blog from 2016  here https://chattingwiththehistocrats.blogspot.com/2016/03/7-questions-with-annette-laing-academic.html ). She is an author, a retired college professor, and a living history presenter who does professional learning presentations for teachers and classroom history experiences for students around  the country. She made the move to Substack, and her newsletter, Non-Boring History is in the top 10 of Substack's history newsletter in subscriptions. She agreed to write a guest blog about her Substack experience.  And if  you decide to give Substack a try, Non-Boring History is a great place to start!

    Annette Laing, PhD on Substack:

Puritans gone wild on a  tropical island, as their confused and desperate advisors in  17th century London try to rail them in. 

Enslaved people in the Deep South who run their own profitable businesses.

A thirtysomething Midwestern couple, successful but bored, buy an RV, and became nomads in California . . . Starting in 1850.

These are just three of the many subjects I write about at Non-Boring History on Substack.  And I also gently suggest why you might care.

Most academic history is about history that matters, but it is written first, foremost, and sometimes only, for scholars. That’s a great shame, because there are so many fantastic stories and interpretations trapped in books and articles written only for the few. 

I want to fix that. I am a Brit in the U.S. I am a missionary for history. And I am also an academic historian. Years ago,  I bailed from my job as a tenured professor of history and member of the Africana Studies faculty at Georgia Southern University. Fed up with modern university life, I started writing MG/YA time-travel novels, and bringing adapted college lectures to elementary and middle-school audiences. Then I started talking to teachers. 

And now, after decades of working with audiences ranging from hungover freshmen to excited kids and  teachers, I’m also writing for the adult public.

Non-Boring History  is an entertaining introduction to what my readers never knew they never knew  about the past (with apologies to Disney’s Pocahontas). It tackles an ever-changing variety of subjects, drawn from the areas I know best, US and British history, with a special interest in Black history. I show how these connect with each other, and with us. This is very much a living past, not a dusty collection of antiques.

As a historian whose academic work dealt less with famous names than with the rest of us, I am keen to spread the word about why that’s incredibly important.  Non-Boring History spotlights real people, just like the diverse audience I write for, who are based throughout the US, the UK, and beyond. My subscribers know I’m honest about the limits of my knowledge, and trust me to be their entertaining and intriguing guide through the forests of history. It’s also a personal take, reflecting 40 years of going between two countries.

I bring Non-Boring History readers a variety of subjects, and in a variety of styles:

On The Road posts cover my past and present travels through the US and UK,  and invite my readers to come along as armchair travelers, and plan for their own future trips. My husband, other family members, and friends are regular characters, and readers share in the drama and comedy as, in pursuit of the past, I get us lost in deserts, battle Los Angeles traffic, and stumble across fascinating and eccentric museums (and delightful people) throughout Britain. I also offer pointers to avoiding boredom and disappointment at historic sites.

 A Bit of History posts are about objects from my junk, um, antique collection. Why does a truly ugly print hang over my desk? Who wrote a postcard I own? I encourage readers to think anew about their own heirlooms and collectibles.

Annette Tells Tales  is at the heart of Non-Boring History, and also comes in podcast form. I tell astonishing stories from the past, often drawn from academic history, and I do that in the same non-snotty way I write about everything else. Don’t be deceived by my breezy and often funny style: This is important stuff, not trivia. That’s why I wrote recently about enslaved people in early Georgia and South Carolina who ran their own businesses: As a historian, I have long been concerned to read of folks who find it slightly shameful to be descended from slaves. I want everyone to know that historians have written a lot and in detail about the incredible initiatives that enslaved African-Americans took to disrupt the brutal system of slavery. 

Based on the work of Cambridge professor Betty Wood and her former student Dr. Tim Lockley,  I wrote about Charles Ball, an enslaved man who managed the plantation fishery where he worked (and also skillfully managed his overseer and his owner), William Grimes, an enslaved man who made his own way in 19th century Georgia’s gig economy, and “Sarah”, a composite character based on actual enslaved women and men who sold their own produce at markets in Savannah and Charleston.  

And I bring subjects like these to light in chatty posts you can enjoy with your feet up and a cup of coffee.

I love that Non-Boring History is so much more than a blog. Substack’s format stores every post in an easy-to-read, organized, and searchable site, without ads.   It brings together a community of adults from around the world, especially from the US and the UK, to talk about history in friendly, non-shouty ways, in a moderated comments section that is limited to subscribers. 

Non-Boring History depends on a unique skillset: My training as a historian and as a journalist, and my work for audiences ranging from ages 9 through adult, which have taught me to write about complicated things in easily-understood and entertaining ways. Indeed, I am delighted that historians are encouraging me to do just that. Professor Lockley, now at the University of Warwick in the UK, on whose work I based my post about enslaved folks in business, wrote, "You did a great job of making a very complex situation believable and clear to a non-academic audience." 

 “Nonnies”, paying subscribers to Non-Boring History, are members of a special community, and they get exclusive commenting privileges, posts, giveaways, and other opportunities to read and interact. Non-paying readers are warmly welcomed, and they currently enjoy many past posts at Non-Boring History for free. But more and more of my work going behind a paywall,  and I won’t apologize for that: We have paid a catastrophic price for demanding that writers write for free on the web, and it’s called clickbait. I don’t do that. 

Interested? Go to http://annettelaing.substack.com , and click on “Let Me Look Around First”.

Want to be a Nonnie? Use this link to sign up through September 22, 2021, and you subscribe for just $48  a year, 20% off the standard rate: https://annettelaing.substack.com/histocrats2021

To learn more about me, my books, and my work as in schools and with the public around the US, visit http://AnnetteLaing.com

And, as the saying goes, do tell a friend.

 

June is Black Music Month, part 2 !

     When I was teaching, I loved teaching the 1920s, 1950s, and 1980s especially, because I got to pull out the all the pop cultural touchstones: movies, radio, tv, art, music, etc. When it came to the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s, I often started by saying something like "imagine country, blues, and gospel having an orgy, and rock and roll is born as a result." Without black artists and their "race music," as it was called then, there would be no rock and roll. Everyone knows there wouldn't be a Beatles or Rolling Stones without people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino. Jerry Lee Lewis got his start and his style from sneaking out of his house as a boy and going to black "juke joints." It was always a lot of fun introducing my students to these greats, pioneers and founders who saw a lot of attention and success, even if it was not what they deserved, but there were even more black founding fathers and mothers of rock and roll who get far less credit.

    Ladies first:  Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton was born in Alabama and grew up singing in the church before she left home and started traveling in R & B Revues, often called the "new Bessie Smith." She was the first to sing "Hound Dog", her biggest hit, three years before Elvis Presley recorded it.

    Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a huge gospel star before crossing over to rhythm and blues and rock and roll. Her voice and songs not only influenced the rock start of the 1960s, but her pioneering guitar technique, using heavy distortion on her electric guitar, was a direct influence on guitarists, like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards.

    Howlin Wolf left Mississippi for Chicago and became a leader among the Chicago blues musicians. 

    For years, Howlin Wolf had a career-long rivalry with Muddy Waters who is often called the "father of modern Chicago blues." 

    Little Walter got his start playing harmonica with Muddy Waters, and he became possibly the greatest harmonica virtuoso ever. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame in 2008, and he remains the only artist to be inducted as a harmonica player.

       Even I had never really heard of Screamin Jay Hawkins until relatively recently, and wow, just wow. Why hasn't a movie about him been made? He was put up for adoption at 18 months and was adopted by a Blackfoot Indian couple. He forged a birth certificate in order to enlist in the army at age 13, allegedly seeing combat in World War II. He aspired to be an opera singer, but went down the blues path instead, and he often performed in animal skins and feathers and incorporated voodoo rituals into his performances. 

The Pandemic and the Classroom, A Teacher's View

 (Since I retired at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, I asked a current teacher, Justin Sumner, to write a guest blog on his reflection of the teaching during the past school year. --- Jeff Burns)

Born and raised in Georgia, Mr. Sumner graduated high school in 2010 from Mary Persons High, earned his B.A. in history from Gordon State College then proceeded to earn a Master’s in Education from Georgia Southern and a Specialist in Education from West Georgia. He began teaching at Ola High in McDonough Georgia immediately after graduating from Gordon in January 2015 and has since taught a wide array of Social Studies courses. These include: Geography, World History, Psychology, Sociology, US History, and AP US History. He is the head girls’ basketball coach and helps out with volleyball.

 The COVID-19 pandemic brought changes, both negative and positive to the world of education. For me, I have always thrived at creating lasting relationships with my students that allow me to have a keen sense of their thought processes, emotions, strengths and weaknesses academically, and ultimately help make them comfortable during the time they are in my classroom. This allows me to identify ways to best help each student succeed. My first day of school tradition is to quickly introduce myself, go over any paperwork required, and then sit down and observe. I want to see how each student acts in their free time. Do they go talk to another student, get out a book, play on their cellphone, put their head down, etc. This is just one part of the process of getting to know my students. This year, I sat in front of a computer screen with 30% of my students being nothing more than the letter of their first name as an icon and the ones that turned their cameras on facing a world of technical difficulties, an unwillingness to turn their microphones on, and some obviously not paying attention. I was unable to make the connections that I wanted to make. Even upon transitioning to a hybrid model with 5-10 students in person and the rest online, it was near impossible to get to know the students. Masks covered their faces, more students refused to turn their cameras on, and participation rates began to decline. 

Students quickly caught on that there was not much we could do as teachers to force them to participate. There were no harsh consequences for when they refused to do their work. Deadlines turned into “I’d like to have it by” and assessments turned into group projects. On test days, half of my in-person learners would choose to stay home and the average score for at-home learners were typically much higher than in-person. Students who struggled on the first few tests or had not completed the work would magically make high A’s and perfect scores while at home assessing. There was little we could do to prevent this. Keep in mind, this was an issue with grade level, honors, and Advanced Placement students. Every teacher seemingly had similar issues.  

 It seems like the term “overwhelmed” was the most used term of the year, but I could see that many students and teachers were.. The pandemic allowed for teachers to experiment with content delivery methods, some proving to be more successful than others. Teaching a subject, APUSH (Advanced Placement US history), for the first time this year, I experimented quite a bit in the beginning. Ultimately, upon discussions with the students and examining the results of their assessments, I concluded what I have long believed: students want to simply be told what they need to know. They were being assigned work, by myself and other teachers, that seemed to me to be busy work. The type of work that checks a box to say that the students have been given something. It served no real purpose. As such, I aimed to streamline my work to be as concise as possible in an attempt to prevent a feeling of being overwhelmed. I examined the standards and objectives of my courses and taught just that. I then created my assessments to match the Georgia Milestone and APUSH exams to the best of my ability and used those to gauge how well my students were understanding the content and to prepare them for those exams in May. I believe this idea of keeping the content and skills taught as concise and focused as possible will go a long way in future years to prevent both student and teacher burnout.

  Ultimately, the pandemic created a dreadful year for many. I love teaching, it’s truly a passion of mine. I am an introvert but interacting with my students brings me joy, and COVID made that very difficult to do. I was also raised to have a great work ethic and it is disheartening to see students simply refuse to do what they are asked to do. I worry how apathetic they will be next year when returning in-person full time. It’s not uncommon to have a small handful of students who refuse to attend class or complete their work, but will we see a large portion of the students be this way now? Finally, while the pandemic was truly difficult for many people, have we conditioned ourselves and students to feel overwhelmed at any sign of difficulty? Students need to be encouraged that they are capable of conquering obstacles, but we as teachers need to work to make sure those obstacles are true learning experiences and not unnecessary bumps in the road. I look forward to a different and better year next year.